PHOTOGRAPHIC SURVEY OF THE COUNTY. 21 



Club. Every one knows how the various agencies of Nature, frost 

 and snow, rain and wind, river and sea, are altering the appearance 

 of the land ; here old rocks are worn away, here new land is being 

 built up of materials brought from some other place. We are apt 

 to look upon the rocks as unchanging, and to speak of the ever- 

 lasting hills ; but a few years' obs(;rvation will sliow how true are 

 the words of our scientific poet when he says : — 



" Nothing stands ; 

 They melt like mist the solid lands, 

 Like clouds they shape themselves and go. " 



And now and again there are chances of securing valuable records, 

 a landslip may for a time lay bare the heart, so to say, of some sea 

 cliff or inland escarpment, the stratification is distinctly shown, 

 whicli, in a few years. Nature, ever ready to heal her wounds and 

 cover her scars with garments green, will hide away from human 

 eyes once more ; or a new railway cutting may in like manner 

 show some interesting formation which will, before long, be 

 similarly covered by a sheet of turf even if in the course of the 

 work its features are not lost. With reference to this point I may 

 quote a few words from a letter I received a few days ago from one 

 of the members of this society. Captain Marshall Hall. He says : — 

 " I have several negatives of clay diggings in the Bagshott sands, 

 and notably the cutting for the new railway near Hamworthy, now 

 destroyed in so far as the excellent exposure goes, and therefore 

 not capable of being photographed again." 



At times, too, special excavations are made on the occasion of 

 the visits of societies, such as your own, to interesting places. I 

 have read in your annual volumes of chalk pits yielding before the 

 eyes of members their store of human bones and other relics of by- 

 gone races. Would not a photograph of such discoveries greatly 

 add to the value of your investigations, and to that of the book in 

 which they are described ? Drawings, no doubt, if properly done, 

 are of high scientific value ; but every one cannot draw, and artists 

 are prone to idealise Nature, seeking often to produce a picture 



